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majestic combination of divine knowledge, power, and compassion, he meets you with just the right mercies for the moment.
Why would you ever want to go back to the delusional hopes of your kingdom of one?
delusionally proud or irrationally fearful.
never again to face his rejection, never again to pay the penalty for our sins, and free from having to measure up to his standard in order to garner his love.
You’ve been called to recognize that your life is no longer your own because you were bought with a price.
You don’t work to earn God’s favor; rather, your work is a hymn of thanks for the favor that Christ achieved on your behalf.
You don’t have to wonder if you’ve worked enough. You don’t have to fear that you’ll mess up and get booted out of the family. You don’t have to fear seeing the back of God’s head. You don’t have to be haunted by the question of whether you’ve done enough for long enough.
So I will quit keeping score. I will not judge your goodness. No, I will rest in the bounty of your mercy.
You see, it wasn’t the naïveté of faith that propelled these people. No, it was the clarity of faith that caused them to do what they did.
Fear in a believer is a function of forgetfulness.
In other words, fear is defeated only by a bigger, greater fear.
When the fear of God overwhelms and controls your heart, it protects you from the paralyzing and debilitating fear of other things.
Well, first run to God and pray that he will grace you with the eyes to see and the heart to remember his awesome glory.
Today, face reality, but meditate on God’s glory.
opportunities, responsibilities, and temptations of everyday life?
Sin makes you quest for independence and self-sufficiency.
Sin makes you think you’re righteous when really your heart is corrupt.
The Bible forces you to face your foolishness and failure so you would run to One who is wisdom and righteousness, and find your hope in him.
“You are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).
It is tempting to harden your heart against the ministry conviction of the Holy Spirit by arguing for your righteousness when a sin, weakness, or failure is revealed.
But be comforted. You serve a dissatisfied Redeemer who will not turn from his work of grace even when you fail to esteem it and work to resist it. With patient grace, once more he calls you to listen. Do you?
So what is biblical hope? It is a confident expectation of a guaranteed result that changes the way you live.
This is why the delivering grace of Christ is essential.
Perhaps many of us struggle with disappointment with God because, at street level in our daily lives, we don’t esteem what God values.
Perhaps many of us want control more than we want redemption. We wish we had more control over the people and circumstances of our lives.
Perhaps many of us crave success more than we crave redemption.
Perhaps many of us esteem acceptance more than we esteem redemption.
Perhaps many of us desire comfort and pleasure more than we desire redemption. If our lives could just be easier and more predictable, we would be satisfied.
Perhaps many of us want material things more than we want redemption.
The question is this: “What set of desires rules my heart?” This is important because the desires that rule your heart determine how you evaluate your life, how you make small and large decisions, and, most importantly, how you think about the goodness and faithfulness of God.
maybe your struggle of faith comes from the fact that you don’t really value what he’s working to produce in your heart and life. He is much, much more than Prozac Jesus; he is your sovereign Savior King.
Here is the bottom line: you will suffer because your suffering is an essential part of God’s good plan for you.
They are placed in our lives as tools of his ongoing work of rescuing, transforming, and delivering grace.
They are in our lives because the God we serve esteems holiness more than he esteems our temporal definition of happiness.
eternal joy.
Thus, this present life is meant by God to be a time of preparation for the final glorious destination that will be our eternal home.
We really do find it easier to make war than to make peace, and we often wish that God would make war with others on our behalf.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
But we can know the true joys of human love only if love for God first rules our hearts. It is only when he is in his rightful place in our hearts that people can be in their appropriate places in our lives.
If love for God isn’t the place where you find your rest, you need human relationships too much and you are asking people to do for you what only your Savior can do.
Here’s what happens: it’s not just that you have a dream, but that your heart gets captured by your dream.
What was once a desire has morphed into a demand, and it won’t be long before you view that demand as a need.
No, grace means that he meets our deepest need with the greatest, most transformative of gifts—he willingly gives us himself.
Prayer is handing God a blank sheet that you have already signed and trusting him to fill it out as he sees fit.
Prayer is laying down your idols and kneeling before God in humble and joyful worship.
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world”
It’s not the peace that comes when life seems to be working well, when the people around you seem to appreciate you, or when your health and finances are good; there is a sturdier peace to be found. It is found in knowing that your heavenly Father is not afraid of, or will not be defeated by, what makes you afraid or has the power to defeat you.
nothing can sever that connection.
You are fighting God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, who at that moment is gracing you with insight, conviction, protection, and rescue.
There is meaning and purpose in everything we are going through. In a real way, God is using all the difficulties of life in this fallen world to change and mature us, making us ready for the world that is to come.
